Daily protests in Brazil target McCain Foods over broken cage-free promise
For the past week, Animal Equality activists have gathered daily outside McCain Foods’ Brazil headquarters in São Paulo, demanding the company keep a cage-free egg promise it made nearly eight years ago and has yet to fulfill.
Demonstrators held signs targeting Scott McCain, part of its global leadership and a member of the McCain family that founded the Canadian frozen foods company.
In 2018, McCain’s Brazilian subsidiary, Forno de Minas, publicly pledged to eliminate eggs from hens kept in cages by 2025. That deadline has now passed.
Based on the company’s own public reporting, the vast majority of eggs used by Forno de Minas still come from hens kept in cages, impacting roughly one million animals.
No public roadmap has been released explaining how or when this will change. Meanwhile, McCain markets itself internationally as 100% cage-free, a standard it has yet to meet in Brazil.
Scott McCain sits at the top of a company that likes to be seen as a global leader on sustainability. But leadership means being accountable everywhere, not just where it’s convenient. Forno de Minas belongs to McCain. Its commitment is McCain’s commitment, and its failure is McCain’s failure.” – Isadora Lemes, Campaigns Manager at Animal Equality
A pattern of cage-free delays in Brazil
This isn’t the first time Animal Equality has confronted McCain over this issue in Brazil. Earlier this year, activists staged a civil disobedience action at APAS Show, one of Latin America’s largest food industry trade events, confronting company representatives over the unfulfilled 2018 cage-free pledge.
Since then, pressure has only intensified, with daily protests outside McCain’s São Paulo offices. Demonstrators are also using this time to speak directly with workers and passersby about the scale of animal suffering at the hands of McCain.
McCain leadership faces scrutiny over cage-free delay
Demonstrators have also called on Aluizio Periquito Neto, McCain’s General Director in Brazil, asking why a subsidiary owned by the global brand operates so far out of step with the standard McCain claims to uphold everywhere else.
Reputational issues like this don’t tend to stay confined to one market. Consumers, partners, and now the public are starting to ask the same question: how long can a global brand let something like this go unresolved before it stops being a ‘Brazil problem’ and becomes a McCain problem, everywhere the name is used?” – Isadora Lemes
Animal Equality demands a public roadmap from McCain
Animal Equality has formally requested that McCain publish a time-bound roadmap that shows exactly how it will reach 100% cage-free eggs in Brazil, including specific progress goals along the way. The company has previously signaled it may extend the deadline to 2030, without offering the transparency advocates are demanding.
Until that roadmap is made public, Animal Equality’s pressure on McCain Foods and Scott McCain will continue.
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